Author contact information: Alistair@eclicktick.com. Phone 650-298-9077

Most managers realize that coming up with a strategy is far less difficult that coming up with a strategy that can be executed. And without successful execution, a strategy will fail.

This white paper addressed what then are the tests for determining the likelihood of success of a strategy and its execution? The final section addresses some useful techniques for resolving disputes about the implementability of strategies using scenario and stakeholder analysis.

The above weightings are clearly arbitrary because in any strategy, one element going wrong can prevent success. In addition, there are dependencies. For example, having poorly skilled people would probably mean that the resources would not be used wisely. But the weightings do represent a rough measure of the importance of the issues.

Enough financial and other resources to implement plan on a multi-period basis.

Critical success factors for success with the product have been identified and are being managed against.

The company is selectively investing in activities in its value chain that grow its ability to drive down costs, increase flexibility or increase value.

The product or service meets the expectations of the customer segment or ideally exceeds expectations and delights the customer.

Product offers a differentiated advantage or compelling price advantage to the targeted segment of customers.

All aspects of product value, including services that customers are willing to pay for, are addressed by company or its alliances.

The strategy is based upon the difference between good and bad customers.

The benefit message is simple and clean and relevant to its target audience.

The evaluation and purchasing process has been made as easy as possible.

Success with the strategy is not dependent upon many activities going right.

The strategy does not increase the complexity of the organization triggering an increase in cost structure.

The strategy simplifies life for the organization or for the customer such that the beneficiary (organization and/or its customers) is/are committed to the strategy or product.

The organization is not distracted by multiple conflicting mandates and time pressures.

The organization is prepared to revise its strategy and upgrade its product and services.

The organization is committed to creating a great product or service on behalf of its customers.

The organization empowers rapid decision making and is committed to learning more, faster than its competitors.

The organization has a culture that permits failure to be recognized quickly so that modifications to the strategy may be made.

The organization has a culture that measures success, recognizes it quickly and is prepared to put resource behind success.

The organization cultivates and manages relationships with suppliers, distributors, alliance partners, VARs, the media, etc. so that its strategy is supported by multiple stakeholders.

A strategy that competitors would find difficult or costly to imitate

As the world is an uncertain place, scenario analysis is an excellent idea for evaluating proposed strategies and their implementation. The basic methodology here is to create 3-5 scenarios or alternate futures, e.g. a world with terrorism on American soil vs. a world where terrorism is controlled quickly.

Then, a proposed strategy and commitment of resources is evaluated across the various scenarios to make sure that the proposed strategy is acceptable under the most likely scenarios. Managers tend to under-forecast the variability in the world, so it is a good idea to deal with more extreme scenarios than managers feel comfortable with.

All managers know intuitively that some strategies are going to be more difficult to implement than others. A useful framework for such discussions is the stakeholder model:

A stakeholder is defined as any person or organization that can affect the implementation of a proposed strategy in a significant way. Example stakeholders might include “divisional barons” in a large organization, customers, competitors, regulators, the media, the public, special interest groups, legislatures, etc.

The key task is stakeholder analysis is to identify and prioritize who the key stakeholders are and what their needs and tolerances are.

One way of thinking about stakeholder needs is to think in terms of:

A satisfier is a need that can be met and once met, any further investment in meeting that need is a waste of resources. For example, Boards of Directors require material information. Too much information will annoy them.

A driver is a need of a stakeholder for which there is a relatively unlimited appetitive over the foreseeable performance range. Within normal ranges of performance, increasing profits is a key driver for management teams and shareholders.

However, at a certain point, even a driver can become a satisfier. For example, increasing profits in a way that damages the health of customers tends not only to be unethical, but also to attract stakeholder intervention.

Clearly, any new initiative deals with uncertainty. Unfortunately, organization often have cultures that require “selling a pitch”. Uncertainties and risks are often not made explicit because exposing them might reduce the chances of approval.

Building consensus within the organization about the mission and values of the organization and only pursuing projects tightly tied to the mission and values. This approach offers the promise of organizational commitment to a business model, value chain, customer group or set of values.

Phasing the project and measuring its success. This approach works very well for some industries where up-front commitments can be phases.

Extensive design and market research work up front to minimize the possibility of designing and building the wrong product and infrastructure. This approach works is appropriate for industries where up front commitment is high and costly mistakes are hard to reverse.

Gain experience in the market by distributing or licensing someone else's product.

Segmenting the market and focusing upon the customer groups with an exceptional high need for your product or services. High need also needs to be associated with an exceptionally good willingness to pay for the product or service.

An outside facilitator is often a good way of validating a proposed implementation of a plan. The facilitator is used to help a group of managers develop a strategy, become personally committed to the strategy and then take ownership of the strategy and its execution.

The rubric in strategic management is that “Those who plan should do.” But perhaps just as importantly, a strategy needs an owner with the power to make things happen. This person needs to be persuasive, monomaniacal and have the ability to commit the organization's resources to make things happen.